This invention relates to an improved telephone system placing a telephone within easy reach of a person confined to a hospital bed. More specifically, this invention relates to an inexpensive telephone and a disposable telephone holder combination that is attachable to the side rails of a hospital-type bed.
Hospitals and other institutions that treat patients having communicable diseases are becoming concerned about difficult to sanitize equipment that might harbor disease carrying organisms. One such piece of equipment is the telephone which now is found almost universally in hospital rooms. The cost of telephone units have been dramatically reduced over recent years so that hospitals now can treat the phone as a disposable item that the patient purchases and thus removes from the room when she or he is released from the hospital.
Heretofore, most hospital room telephones have been placed on a stand positioned next to the bed. A patient in the bed typically has difficulty reaching the phone, particularly when the patient is relatively immobile and the side rails of the bed are in a raised position. The problem is addressed in my U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,945,561 and 4,998,277 which disclose a telephone holder that can be adjustably attached to the side rails of a hospital bed. One embodiment of the disclosed holder involves a pair of jaw-like members that are held in sliding relationship. Each member includes a hook that can be placed over the rails of a hospital bed. A ratchet-like mechanism permits the members to be locked in a desired position in relation to each other. In practice, the jaw members are extended so that the hooks can pass over the bed-rails. The members are then brought together to close the hook over the rails. The ratchet mechanism holds the members in a locked position to prevent the hooks from being dislodged.
The phone system described in the noted Rioux patents works well in practice and solves a longstanding problem in the art. However, it has been found that the phone holder is exposed to a good deal of stress as the telephone is inserted and removed from the holder. The stress is generally intensified when the patient/user's mobility is limited Oftentimes, the telephone is canted as it is entering or leaving the holder which causes a high twisting moment to be exerted on the holder components. This, in turn, can cause breakage and premature release of the ratchet due to binding or deformation of the holder members.